


Time

by imjusttheoutgoingsidekick



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Death, Heavy Angst, Loss, M/M, Saddness, Shameless Quoting Of Hamilton, greif, idk how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-14 17:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16497110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imjusttheoutgoingsidekick/pseuds/imjusttheoutgoingsidekick
Summary: Spot and Race were in love.





	1. Loss

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS SAD AND THE SUMMARY SUCKS IM SORRY I CRIED WRITING THIS

Spot was walking down the streets of Brooklyn when he heard a groan in the alleyway. He turned his head, seeing a mop of blonde hair and-

Blood. 

So much blood. 

“Race!” Spot shouted and ran to him, his eyes already brimming with tears. “Baby, oh god what happened?” He kneeled down and tore off his vest. He pressed it into the wound on Race’s stomach, pulling him to his chest. 

“I- I was mugged,” Race rasped out. “The fuckin’ Delaney brothers, called me a fairy an’ shit like that.” His breathing was ragged and his skin was getting paler every second that passed. 

Spot practically growled, picking Race up in his arms. “It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay,” he whispered. 

Race shook his head, “Spot, I might not-“ he was thrown into a coughing fit. 

Tears threatened to spill from Spot’s eyes as he clutched Race to his chest. “Don’t you dare say that Tonio’, don’t you fucking dare.” He pressed a swift kiss to Race’s forehead while they were still in the shelter of the alleyway, then started out down the streets and back to the lodging house. 

By the time they got there, Spot’s vest was soaked through with blood. He laid Race down on his bed and pulled his only other shirt out from under the bed. 

Race shook his head weakly, “baby, don’t waste your good shirt on me,” he murmured. Spot unbuttoned Race’s shirt anyway, attempting to stop further bleeding with better access to the wound. 

“Gettin’ frisky are we,” Race let out a weak laugh. 

That’s what broke Spot. He let out a broken sob and collapsed onto Race’s chest, one hand still keeping the shirt in place over the wound. “I can’t lose you Racer,” he choked out. “You’re the best thing in my life, you’re everything I look forward to, and I don’t know if I can make it without you.”

Race shushed him, petting through his hair and attempting to keep his breath normal. “Hey, hey,” he lifted Spot’s chin up. “Sean, it’s gonna be okay, I promise.”

Despite his comforting words, Race went into another coughing fit, blood spilling out of the corner of his mouth. 

Spot looked at him with pure horror. “Oh god, ohgodohgosohgod.” Then and only then did Race begin to cry. 

“Please,” he whispered, “don’t look at me like that.” Tears spilled down his cheeks and dropped onto his shirt. “Please, Spot, don’t look at me like I’m something you don’t want to see.”

Spot nodded, wiping tears from his eyes. “What do you need doll, what can I do.”

“Help me- help me sit up please,” he whispered. Spot propped him up on the headboard, and crawled into the bed beside him. “Tell me you love me, please Spot tell me one more time.”

“I love you Antonio,” he whispered. “I love your laugh, and your smile, and I love your eyes. I love the way that whenever I smell smoke, I think of you. I love it when you spend the night in Brooklyn, and I wake up with you in my arms. I love you. I love you.” He kissed all over his face, running fingers through his hair. 

"Kiss me,” he requested. “I know there’s blood, and I know that’s gross but please, I need it”

Spot nodded, leaning over and kissing him. He used one hand to cup Race’s cheek and the other to rub up and down his arm. He pulled away, only to keep planting several tiny kisses all over Race’s face while he returned his hand to the shirt on Race’s stomach. 

Race coughed, his body convulsing horribly. Spot quickly pulled Race so he was sat in his lap. He held him close and whispered sweet nothings in his ear, desperately trying anything to help Race stay with him. 

“Sean, Sean listen,” Race mumbled. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered. Spot looked at him, his skin pale and his eyes bloodshot. 

“How?” Spot hated the way his voice cracked, it made him feel powerless. “How will this ever be okay?”

Race reached a hand up and touched his face. He traced the lines of his cheekbones, his jawline, the bridge of his nose. “It’ll be okay.”

“What can I do,” Spot murmured. “I don’t want you to feel bad.”

Race looked up at him and gave him a gentle smile. “Just, hold me,” he whispered. “Hold me until it’s over.”

Spot nodded. He could see the light behind Race’s eyes, but it was fading fast. “I love you Racer, I love you so much.”

“Sean?”

“Yes?”

“Promise me you’ll move on,” he whispered. “Promise me you’ll love again. I want you to be happy Spotty.”

Spot nodded through tears, “I’ll try Racer, I promise.”

Race nodded contently. “We’ll see each other again, Sean.”

“No,” Spot held him tighter. “No, no no no. Baby, please,” he begged. He knew it wouldn’t help anything, but he couldn’t. “Please don’t leave me.”

Race gave him the smallest smile, “I’m not leaving forever. I’ll only be gone for a while. We’ll meet again, I promise.”

His eyes fluttered closed and he sighed. “It’s only a matter of time.”


	2. Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this in Spanish class  
> O  
> (  
> O

Sean ‘Spot’ Conlon died in 1965, at the ripe old age of eighty two. No one had called him Spot in a very long time. Mostly he had been called Sean or Dad, or in some cases “Hey Dumbass” worked as well on the rare occasion that his old friends came to visit. 

He didn’t see his friends very often. They had parted ways after aging out of selling. Jack and Katherine moved in together and started a political comic series for the local newspaper. David had gone to college and become a doctor, and Sarah had lived her life as a quiet librarian. Les went on to take care of animals just like he had always wanted to. No one talked about Crutchie very much. The sickness had gotten the best of him when he was only nineteen. It was a year after Race.

Those two things hit the group hard. They kept to them selves as they grew up, but they never left the New York area.

But none of them called him Spot in a long, long time. No one had called him Spot since Race. 

Sean knew he was dying. He said his goodbyes to his children before closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he was blinking in a blinding white light. Looking down at himself, he saw that he was seventeen again. He wore his red and black tank top, worn down boots and black trousers held up by black suspenders. 

The light began to darken at the edges as he looked up, and a blurry picture came into view. It was so familiar, like seeing an old friend after spending years apart. The docks, the ones where Spot had made his makeshift office back when he was the king of Brooklyn. 

Spot blinked a few times and the picture cleared up. There, sitting on the boxes was a boy, with a ratty blue shirt and a mop of blonde curls. A cigar hang from his lips. 

“Tony?” Spot stepped forwards, squinting to see more clearly. 

The boy hopped off the boxes, taking the cigar out of his mouth. He called out but Spot didn’t hear it. Spot was running as fast as he could, all the aches and pains of old age gone for good. He crashed into Race, lifting him off the ground easily and spinning him around. 

Race’s infectious laughter filled Spot’s ears and heart, and he found himself laughing too. He never wanted to let go of the boy in his arms. He had already done that once and he wasn’t about to do it again. 

Reluctantly, he sat Race back on the ground, pulling back slightly only to be pulled back in. He felt Race’s arms wrap around him, and tears came to his eyes. He allowed himself to cry, finally holding the boy he had loved in his arms once again. 

“I missed you,” Race whispered. He buried his face in Spot’s shoulder and smiled a little. He pulled back. “You gotta tell me about your life Spotty,” he murmured. Tracing the line of Spot’s jaw with his fingers. 

Spot smiled. “It wasn’t much of a life without you,” he murmured. Race punches him lightly, and Spot laughed. “I never married but,”

“I told you to move on!” Race swatted at him, “I wanted you to keep loving baby, you deserved to be happy.”

Spot shook his head, “You didn’t let me finish, I may not have married but I did love.” He gave him a bittersweet smile, “I couldn’t think about loving someone in the same way I loved you again, it hurt too much. So I took in kids off the streets. I wanted them to have a better life.”

Race smiled, “that’s so sweet,” he whispered. 

“Remember Beans, that li’l guy from Brooklyn? I took him in, and his baby sister after their mom died. And those thins from flushing? Them too.” Spot smiled and thought for a second, “I kept takin’ in kids until I died, Race. They would come to my house when they needed a place to stay. Sometimes they’d only be there for a day, or a week. But some of ‘em stayed all the way through school. And the kids on my block, they all called me dad, and I was so proud of all of ‘em. I lived in a pretty poor neighborhood, but I helped all those kids get through school Race. I had a little bookstore and I lived above it, and the kids would come and I’d help ‘em with their schoolwork. I watched those kids grow up and go to college, and they’d come back and say ‘look, I’ve made it through college, I’m a doctor now.’ And I was so proud.”

Race smiled widely and hugged him. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered. He pulled back and looked Spot in the eyes, “you kept on living, and you made it out. I’m so, so proud of you.”

Spot could barely see through his tears of happiness. He hadn’t realized he was crying, but looking back on his life had made him realize how good it had been. He put his hand in the side of Race’s face, “I wish you could’ve been there to see it, the kids would’ve loved you,” he whispered. 

Race smiled, and leaned in to plant a kiss in Spot’s cheek. “Me too Sean.”

Spot grinned widely, “I missed you so much,” he rubbed his thumb across Race’s bottom lip. “Can I kiss ya?”

Race nodded, and brought their lips together. It was soft and slow, and long overdue. Spot let one hand cup Race’s face and the other drifted down to his hip. Race’s hands rested on Spot’s shoulders, feeling his warm skin. 

They pulled away and rested their foreheads together. Race smiled, closing his eyes and just being in the moment. 

“You taste like home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof hey guys, yes I write stuff but I really need validation, so please comment!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, this is my first time killing a character


End file.
